5 Insanely Blatant Acts of Plagiarism by Famous People

Ideas are hard, you guys. At least when you insist on actually coming up with your own -- that's why the Internet is mostly just people copying and pasting somebody else's shit.

But there is a certain level at which public figures just can't get away with it -- politicians, famous authors, scientists -- people who know their work is going to be scrutinized. Yet, sometimes even the most famous of them engage in thievery so laughably obvious that you have to wonder if they wanted to be caught ...

#5. Jane Goodall "Borrows" from Wikipedia and Pseudoscience Sites

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Primatologist Jane Goodall is often confused with Sigourney Weaver's character in Gorillas in the Mist (Weaver actually played Dian Fossey). There is a reason for this: In the world of academia, Goodall's score on the Scale of Badassitude is "Ellen Ripley." She took her first steps in primatology with no degree or training, studied chimpanzees in Tanzania for a while, and, after making a bunch of groundbreaking discoveries, waltzed her way into flippin' Cambridge University. Before you know it, she managed to obtain a PhD from this super-university without any prior degrees, a feat that the writers of Air Bud would have deemed unrealistic.

The secret behind Goodall's academic street cred is simple: She has a reputation as an extremely meticulous researcher.

Well, except for that one time ...

The Plagiarism:

In early 2013, Goodall became the center of a plagiarism controversy around her book Seeds of Hope: Wisdom and Wonder from the World of Plants. It was meant to be Goodall's take on genetically modified crops, but people soon started noticing that many parts of the text were ... borrowed. Not from obscure and little-known scientific texts, either -- Goodall's book contained unsourced sentences and entire paragraphs from various web pages, ranging from astrology sites and beer pages to goddamn Wikipedia.

WikipediaWhich became apparent when research was attributed to Prof. Jack Mehoff.

Although Goodall immediately apologized (yet still maintained that the book was well-researched), it soon turned out the scope of plagiarism was bigger than initially thought, to the point where people's answers to Goodall's "interviews" were directly copied from other sources. Combine this with the book's attempts to discuss a legitimate and polarizing issue using data drawn from goddamn astrology sites, and it's easy to see why the impressive reputation Goodall has built over five decades is now running the risk of ending in ruins.

It should be noted that Goodall didn't write the book alone. She was aided by Gail Hudson, an experienced freelance writer whose previous interests include holistic living, organic foods, and ... spirituality editing?

Yeah. With all due respect to an accomplished scientist, that's probably not the best writing partner for an unbiased stance on GMO maize.

There were only two things standing between Vaughn Ward and a bright future in D.C. One of them was Vaughn Ward, and the other was a speech that he stole from a little-known politician called Barack Obama.

U.S. Congress"But honestly, how will people ever know?
They'd need some kind of magical machine that instantly looks up information."

The Plagiarism:

Ward's oratory abilities -- or lack thereof -- had already become apparent when he comically referred to Puerto Rico, an unincorporated U.S. territory, as an independent country during a debate. When his opponent (who happened to be from Puerto Rico) seized the opportunity to unleash a justified verbal smackdown, Ward retaliated with the cunning argument: "I really don't care what it is. I mean, it doesn't matter." Because, you know, why would a congressman care about U.S. territory?

CQ-Roll Call Group/CQ-Roll Call Group/Getty Images

Common sense in the back seat, geography in the trunk.

Perhaps this is why Ward started preferring other people's words to his own. Only, instead of hiring a speech writer or brain therapist or whatever it is politicians prone to speaking out of their asses do, he resorted to stealing shit from other politicians.

No fewer than five of the 10 position statements on Ward's website were copied verbatim from the websites of fellow Republicans, including big names such as future vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan. There's still a chance Ward might have shrugged that shit off, if he hadn't also seen fit to steal some of the most memorable lines from President Obama's 2004 Democratic National Convention speech. Granted, it's a well-regarded speech that launched Obama into political super stardom, so it's far from the worst one you could quote ... for a political essay, properly sourced. If you happen to be a Republican trying to pass those words as your own, you're up shit creek within minutes because every single political journalist recognizes the text as the famous speech given by the reigning ultimate Democrat.

Really, the only thing that's more hilarious than the fact that Ward did this was the fact that after he was inevitably called out, he still tried to claim he had written that shit himself. Two guesses as to whether he made it to Congress.

#3. Alex Haley's Roots Is a Cocktail of Fact, Fiction, and Thievery

ABC

For some of you, the mention of Alex Haley's Roots might trigger gruesome flashbacks of Kunta Kinte, played by LeVar Burton in the TV adaptation, getting viciously whipped by his slave owners. However, Roots was a lot more than mere nightmare fodder for Reading Rainbow enthusiasts. A gripping saga that follows seven generations of the author's ancestry from Africa into the horrors of slavery and racism, the book earned Haley a special Pulitzer award in 1977.

Stockbyte/Stockbyte/Getty ImagesHis family tree included Jesus and Superman up until the third draft.

But that's just general fuckery -- we're here for the plagiarism. Enter Margaret Walker Alexander, who sued the shoes off of Haley with the claim that Roots greedily gobbled passages from her book Jubilee, also a mix of historical fact and fiction documenting its author's ancestry. The court found clear evidence that Haley had been influenced by Alexander's book, but could do nothing: Alexander, who later claimed Haley may have stolen from hundreds of books, found to her shock that the six characters, roughly 150 verbatim expressions, and countless lifted themes Roots allegedly took from Jubilee were legally unprotected.